


You've Been Swell

by shakespearespaz



Category: Revolution (TV)
Genre: F/M, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-28
Updated: 2013-09-28
Packaged: 2017-12-27 20:07:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,190
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/983077
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shakespearespaz/pseuds/shakespearespaz
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Her dad called it teenage rebellion, her mom experimenting; she corrected them apathetically from across the dinner table—she was learning. Growing up. That’s what you did.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You've Been Swell

Rachel liked to learn.

Her dad called it teenage rebellion, her mom experimenting; she corrected them apathetically from across the dinner table—she was _learning._ Growing up. That’s what you did.

The first one her father had whispered judgmentally to her mother—pot dealer. Her dad thought she’d go for any man off the street and for a while Rachel was fiercely possessive of the fact that he was a dealer, not some pothead.

Her world was full of rules—don’t do this or that and even the subjects she liked still insisted that the equation be balanced just right. Rachel liked finding out what happened when she broke the rules.

The pot dealer was alright for a few months. She lost interest in his world quickly and even more when he’d show up and expect to make out with her while steeped in the thick, pungent smell of marijuana. She almost enjoyed the break-up; she’d initiated it after all and he’d taken it well. Besides, the power to create and end something was far more satisfying than a high.

Her father gave her more freedom than she expected, but refused to let her evening plans hinder academics. Rachel would finally thank his stubbornness for winning out against hers come applications to grad school, but she melodramatically moaned that her advanced high school classes drowned her. Behind the half-formed façade for her parents, she loved her classes with a passion, but by the time she’d stared at fluid mechanics and rotational statics and F(x) for a weekend, her usual black and white friends blurred before her eyes. She felt sore and tired and distracted and tingly and knew what the warm sensation creeping through her meant.

The drummer had been pure lust.

He sucked at drumming—which Rachel thought hilarious but applauded him anyway—but at least kept himself in shape and well-trimmed. He was solid and masculine and had strong hands well-honed by the sub-par musical talent. Her father saw someone with no direction in life; Rachel relished Saturday nights in the back seat of his car. He gave her what he needed and years later she’d laugh with her family over the fact that they thought she was serious. He moved at the end of junior year and it was the natural end for both, although Rachel knew she’d miss the thick, soft hair between her fingers.

The throwing star boy became her dad’s favorite and by favorite he meant that he hated the boy with an unending passion.

He approached her for a date first, but then again she had spent the first month of comparative government staring at him doodle through class two rows in front of her. Rachel hated politics—too messy—but he intrigued her. Cheeky and disinterested in the classroom, he aced every exam. He was the only boyfriend she ever took to a school dance and their brief appearance lasted all of twenty minutes. They spent the rest of the night playing video games while drunk in his dad’s basement.

Rachel thought it funny that of all the boys, her dad liked to single him out. Not Henry, who’d hit her once in a disagreement and she’d never spoken to again, or Will, the immature college frat boy who officially introduced her to alcohol, or Mark, who considered LSD a legitimate means of artistic inspiration.

No, throwing star boy scared her father more, perhaps because to some extent he knew that the others would eventually leave.

Rachel took an authentic interest in her new companion and he fascinated her. Less bad boy, more loner. Less intimidating, more with interests off the beaten path. Her father never saw his humor, only the black jeans and greasy hair and glint of silver in his pockets. Her father didn’t understand that the clean cut with glasses boys he jokingly pointed out as they toured colleges Rachel glanced at and saw only boredom. She looked at them and saw a house with two kids and polite smiles and routine and for her, right then and for the rest of her life, that wasn’t enough.

She wished she could say that Ben had changed her mind.

He’d changed her mind about some things. She could talk science with him like she never could with the others. He would snap right back with a challenge or clarification when she postulated about the latest reading, instead of an intimidated smile and trite comment about how cute she was when she used big words. But Ben hadn’t been boyfriend material at first; he’d been the kid still awake at 3 AM in computer lab with her, stealing gummy bears as they tried to at least make some progress in their code before the sun rose. She found him more attractive over time, and apparently them becoming a thing was inevitable, at least according to her roommate.

Rachel didn’t dislike spending time with him; in fact, she loved their hours together. There just wasn’t that irresistible pull, the hint of mystery. They knew each other too well. Although in the long run, she supposed, familiarity was what mattered.

Miles was everything she’d tried on in high school rolled into one and good enough not to look twice in front of Ben, although he stared when his brother turned away. Miles hadn’t even had a proper conversation with Rachel until he knocked on his brother’s apartment door and instead found the drunk girlfriend sobbing over a thesis that had been ripped to shreds by her advisor.

Rachel wasn’t as drunk as he thought, simply upset, but he cared immediately, regardless of who she was, and she found his awkwardness as he tried to ascertain how much alcohol she had consumed more endearing in him than in his brother. He did as any out of place future brother-in-law would have done and ordered her pad thai, confined her to the couch and let her giggle at his wry comments as they watched _Terminator 2_.

Ben got out of his evening class halfway across the city with 22 missed calls and a girlfriend who’d fallen hard and fast for his brother.

Her father saw it at her wedding, and Rachel caught his disapproval as something else entirely. The commitment terrified her; she was marrying her best friend, but she still struggled with forming a bond so final. She was thinking for two, though. She and Ben had been careful but not enough, and Rachel could hardly imagine caring for another life, or spending the rest of hers with Ben.

Miles had reached for her as she stopped him from refilling his glass with golden liquid and wished her luck. Warmth and confusion surged at the sensation of his calloused fingers wrapped around hers and Rachel felt nothing but shame that she stood in her white dress lusting after another man, as her husband chatted eagerly about their work and plans across the room, barely hesitating before he merged their lives into one.

Rachel wasn’t ready, wasn’t ready to yield up that part of herself. She still had a lot of learning to do.


End file.
